You can draw a straight line from @mikespiesnyc' reporting on the NRA's self-dealing thetrace.org/features/nra-f… to Tish James' announcement today
Read my story from last year on how the NRA's bylaws and senior officers' personal fealty to Wayne LaPierre made it impossible for the group to reckon with its own corruption thetrace.org/2019/07/nra-re…
As a NY nonprofit law expert told me last year, Tish James' legal strategy could be a risky one and it's not clear that even if the suit succeeds, it would truly mean the death of the organization. thetrace.org/2019/05/heres-…
Why? Because even if the NRA gets the corporate death penalty, a judge would still have to decide what to do with its most valuable assets like member rolls, which the courts would likely transfer to a substantively similar organization.
That means that the essential political functions of NRA could be reconstituted by someone like Chris Cox, the group's former chief lobbyist who resigned as this scandal ballooned last year and is basically untouched by the allegations, should he create a new organization.
James' suit could instead be an opening gambit in a legal strategy seeking a settlement that would allow her to install auditors in the NRA's offices and monitors overseeing all operations, which would likely dig up more dirt and seriously hamper the group
